The backstory: I'm getting married in August. I have a very large and very close-knit extended family. My fiance, on the other hand, had a small extended family to begin with, and the of the few relatives he has, several have disqualified themselves from an invitation (his father and stepmother were abusive, and his mother's side of the family plotted to get his mother declared an unfit parent just so that his uncle with three daughters could get custody and thus have a male child...and then completely disowned my fiance and his mother both when their attempt at legal kidnapping failed. What a lovely bunch!), and his grandfather's health is too poor to be able to attend. So between the fact that we're getting married in my hometown and that my relatives outnumber his about ten to one, I was terribly concerned that my poor fiance would feel left out at his own wedding.
Then, my mother had a brilliant idea: why not make the theme of the reception revolve around one of HIS interests? So we decided that the centerpieces would incorporate the OTHER love of his life: chess!
The result:
It's a chess king and queen standing under a chuppah (Jewish wedding canopy). Half of the centerpieces will look like the one pictured, while the other half will have blue chess pieces and white chuppah poles. The chess pieces are not "real" chess pieces, because we couldn't find any chess sets in which the king didn't have a cross on his crown...which, since we are Jewish, would be weird. So the chess pieces are made out of three-inch wooden candlesticks from Michaels. The king's crown is just one of the same wooden birthday candle holders we used for the base of the poles, just turned upside down and glued in place. And the colors were chosen to match the bridesmaids' dresses, which are blue and aqua.
We're also thinking about baking a plain sheet cake for the wedding, using icing to make similar blue and white chessboard squares on top, and making a chess king and queen cake topper to match the theme, but my father thinks it would be too hokey. What do you think?
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It means "Let them praise His name with dance; with harp and tambourine, let them sing praises to Him.")
That neckline is gorgeous! (Plus, I'm glad to see that I'm not the only girl out there who dresses up as male characters...makes me feel much better about my plan to go as Kirk to my fiance's Spock this year. Nerd couples for the win! 
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